The Fourth installment of the series called, the Basics of Islam, centers around one question… Do Christians, Jews and Muslims worship the same God? This is a 2 Part episode.
RESOURCES:
Sami Yusuf – Supplication Video
Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Acts 10:23b-48 Cornelius comes to faith
Ida Glasser – The Bible and Other Faiths (Global Christian Library)
Don Richardson – Eternity in Their Hearts
David Bently – The 99 Beautiful Names Of God*: For All the People of the Book
James 1:26-27 26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. Google Search for “echad” in the Shema – Deuteronomy 6:4
30 Day Prayer Guide www.worldchristian.com
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Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Is the God of Muhammed the Father of Jesus? – Part 2:
This is part 2 of the podcast, is the father of Mohammed It’s a tongue twister. The father of Mohammed. It’s not the father of Mohammed. It’s the god of Mohammed and the father of Jesus. Part 2.
Let’s do it. I’m releasing this one. Well, once again, Muslim terrorists, a terrorist lot of innocent people are extremist now. These are terrorists of country. Random terrorism is brutal and deadly.
Newsflash America. These Muslim extremists are are alive and well. They are not dead, and their video is not gratuitous, and it certainly is not irrelevant. It is a warning. Welcome to the truth about Muslims podcast, the official podcast of the Center For Muslim Studies, where we help to educate you beyond the media.
Here are your hosts, Howard and Trevor. But then you have another problem, which I think is the deeper problem, which is the nature of God. Yes. That’s the issue. Because we’re talking about meaning.
Because to be quite frank with you, Howard, when I hear the some Christians speak about the nature of God, I’m not sure we’re worshiping or talking about the same God. Oh. Do you know what I mean? Do you understand what I’m saying? Yeah.
I’m not saying that lightly. I’m I’m being serious. No. I’m being serious too. It it’s sad for me.
But go ahead. Yeah. So somebody that’s a a follower of Christ, and at least they would say they’re a follower of Christ, and and then you hear them talk about the nature of God, I’m thinking to myself, I’m not sure we’re talking about the same God. Right. Give us an example.
Well, I mean, the the hateful speech that I hear out of people, the desire for God to smite people and all this stuff, I’m thinking Yeah. Wow. That’s not the, the way that God has revealed himself through Christ in the new testament. Right. It is Or I’ve even heard some people say that the Old Testament God and the New Testament God are 2 separate gods.
And I’m thinking Right. Where did you come up with this? This is heresy. Right. It kinda reminds me of the Westboro Baptist Church.
There you go. I wasn’t gonna go there. I think we’ve talked about them once before, but yeah. Right. Right.
But, in terms of the way they say vocally and actually go and behave, like boycotting or, picketing, right, it’s interesting just to to actually hear people on Facebook or social media that are, you know, spouting that same kinda hate but at the same time think they’re not as bad as Westboro. It’s interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Right?
Because it’s, like, kind of in their heart. Maybe they’re not as vocal about it or behave the same way, but in the heart of hearts, the what what what was the term you used about, the the they believe that God is that way, the character of God? Yeah. The nature of God. The character attributes of God.
Right. So some have argued that this that these two gods cannot be the same god because the God of the bible, the God of Christianity, the father of Jesus is trinitarian in nature. Right. Right? That’s an argument that often comes up.
Well, to Muslims, they would say. Right. They would say the difference between Allah and the God of the bible is Right. The God of the bible is Trinitarian in nature and Allah is is a monad. That’s if that’s if they’re gracious.
Yeah. Well, yeah. If they’re willing to consider anything else. But then you have to deal with the fact that the God of the old testament, I don’t think that the Jews are going to see this Trinitarian nature of God. No.
Why would they? Right. It’s nonexistent. Now as a Christian, you can look back and try to say, you know, this is the Trinitarian nature of God and I won’t go into all the arguments. But if you wanna look it up, you can look up the term.
You can look up in the beginning where it says, let us create. But you know what? The Quran also uses that terminology, us, and it’s really more of a majestic terminology. Wait. Wait.
There is an Pause there. Explain that. Which part? The us is a majestic. Right.
So when in speaking in a kingly language like you’re speaking in the behalf of an office as opposed to, a relationship. You’ve never considered that before. Yeah. So there there is arguments that some Christians have made that there is Jesus in the trinity right there in the beginning. I think the Hebrew scholars that are Christian would say, you’re kinda stretching it there.
And they use the same thing with the term, which is really a unity speaking in a singularity. For instance, let Israel cry out with one voice. It’s multiple people, but it’s with one voice. Right. And that’s that term and what it means.
But I’ve asked the Hebrew scholars, and they they say and these are Christian Hebrew scholars that say, that’s a pretty weak argument and that’s not really what the Hebrew is saying, that Christians are really reading back a trinity into the Old Testament that’s not really there. Interesting. Yeah. So in that sense, if we make the trinitarian argument, we would probably have to go along the lines of saying that the Jews also don’t worship the same God, which would be fine for some people. For instance, Jesus in John, what is it, chapter 8 when he’s dealing with the Pharisees.
We’ve gotta we’ve gotta look that up, actually. It’s a pretty important verse in discussing this. Howard, look up John chapter 8 when he’s discussing with the Pharisees. And he says before Abraham was, I am. Abraham saw my day and he was glad in it and he calls them that they don’t know God.
He calls them sons of the devil, I believe. Yeah. Okay. So you what part do you want me to read? Just the part there when he’s talking about, Abraham before Abraham was.
So this is, the the Jews, questioning Jesus and, you know, like, claiming that he’s possessed by a demon. Jesus says, I’m not possessed by a demon. But I honor Can you imagine accusing Christ? The fullness of deity, like, resting in Jesus’ things. Right.
You were way old. This is verse 49 this is John 849. But I honor my father, and you dishonor me. I am not seeking glory for myself, but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. Very truly, I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.
Then he keeps going back. And then, finally, at the end, this is, verse 58. Very truly I tell you, this is Jesus, Jesus answered before Abraham was, I am exclamation point. At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself slipping away from them, from the temple grounds. Man, that’s a pretty intense situation.
But Right. But the terminology, I am. I mean Right. That’s pretty. Well, he the in in the Christians right.
Because he’s claiming deity there. But he says, also in that same passage, if I’m not mistaken let me look. Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him and I obey his word.
Your father Abraham rejoiced and thought of seeing my day and he saw it and he was glad. So in essence, he’s saying they don’t actually know God. They don’t know the father. For if they had known the father, they would know him because the father had sent him. And so that’s the, that’s the big question is, and that’s a little bit up in the passage, right, when he talks about 54.
Right. So if, if the Jews had known God, they would have known Jesus is essentially what Jesus Jesus is saying. And so I could understand if somebody were to say, hey, listen. The God of the Jews is not the God of the Christians. Because the God of the Jews did not recognize Jesus and did not and Jesus seems to imply that they don’t actually know God.
Right. But from my own perspective, I wouldn’t go there. But I could see how if somebody was willing to say, hey, look. The God of Islam is not the God of the Bible. The God of the Jews is not the God of the Bible.
The only one true God has to come with Christ at the center because the fullness of deity deity rests in him. Apart from the cross and the life and the incarnation of Christ, you have no understanding of God. You have some understanding of God is what I would say. They may may say you have no understanding of God. Okay.
So here’s where it comes down to. Right? It comes down to the cross and it comes down to Christ. I would argue that in order to understand who God is and the nature of God, you have to have faith and understanding Yeah. I agree.
Of course, I agree. But I’m thinking in implications of how does that, how does that answer the question whether Allah and God are the same? Well, like I said from the very get go, I think it’s a silly question that people ask or a silly argument that they try to make because there is only one god. And the question I think really that they’re asking with that is how much do you have to have right about God in order for him to become God or how much wrong do you have to have about about God when he ceases to become God? Do you get what I’m saying here?
It’s almost like there’s there’s this divine spectrum. Right. And But it’s really like you’re sidestepping the question because I think the question leads you to think, okay, is the God of Islam the God in which the Muslims follow? The Quran, the Hadith, the, the character attributes of God. Is that the same as the Christian God with, you know, where we have Jesus, the trinity, holy spirit, rather than saying a semantics issue of is is this is there just one God and we all are at various levels of, revelation.
And I’ve obviously, the the the greatest revelation comes through Christ in our salvation and knowing him, leads us to the father. And that’s the only way to know the father. But in other terms, you know, like like the Jews have a various, a limited knowledge of the true revelation of God. Mhmm. Mhmm.
And then, of course, now we’re saying that possibly Muslims are in that same category. Well, I think Muslims understand quite a bit about God. So, for instance, I wanna I want everybody to kinda unless you’re driving a car, don’t close your eyes, Pull over. Close your eyes. Picture a gigantic circle.
Imagine a white piece of paper and I’m drawing a big circle on the white piece of paper. Now that would represent the total knowledge of God. I know it’s really not as impressive as you once thought it was, but on a white piece of paper we have to deal with this. One big circle, the total knowledge of God. Now with inside that one big circle, I want you to draw another circle that’s smaller.
So now you have one circle inside of a circle. That would be the revealed aspects of God. No one on the earth has total knowledge about God. There are things that we don’t know about God. However, there are revealed aspects of God.
Right. There’s some we do know. And the fullness, the fullest revelation whenever, you know, someone says, tell me about God, I tell them about Jesus because the fullness of deity dwelt with Jesus. He is God. K.
So at the center of that second circle, I would put a cross. Okay? K. Now I want you to think about it for a second. Do you know a friend that you would say this guy is an American?
He understands a lot about God, but he does not believe in the death and the resurrection of Christ. He certainly doesn’t believe Jesus was God, but he does believe, you know, God. There is a God. Yeah. God created everything.
Yeah. I know a lot of people. I mean, that’s the average American probably. Right. Right.
Right. Now, if you were to go down to your friend and begin talking to him about God, would you change the name? To what? Like secular human beings? Yahweh or Jehovah.
No, probably not. You would talk to him about God. Right. And you would try to get his, the things that he believed about God. You would try to bring imagine his circle would be some of the things he believes are outside of the revelation of God, outside of the revealed aspects of God I get it.
Yeah. And he’s missing the cross. He would try to bring that circle in so that he understood who Jesus was. Right. So his circle of understanding would be within the cross.
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Right. He’s missing the cross right now and you would want to bring him to the point where he understands God So through Christ. So, like, correcting the view his view of God. Yeah. His, what he knows in part right now as Paul says to the, Aropagas and and the Athenians in in Acts 17.
What you knew and worshiped in part now, I’m going to reveal to you in full. So this idea that I would argue that Muslims probably have more inside the circle of the revealed aspects of God than the average American. Woah. The average non Christian. Right.
Right. Right. Right. I I get what you’re saying, but Because they’re going to say that they believe that God created everything from nothing with a spoken word. That’s that’s a very rare thought today in the secular humanist world.
No. I don’t I don’t agree. Say that the power of God spoke the world into existence. They’re gonna say that God created all of the animals of the earth. They’re gonna say that God created Adam and he created Eve and they’re gonna say that he created them out of dust and he breathed life into them.
But there’s even a historical Jesus. Right. That’s huge with most Lawrence today. And so and then they’re gonna argue that God sent prophets and messengers. He’s they’re gonna say there was a flood and that God preserved, his prophet and messenger and family through Noah.
And then they’re gonna argue about they’re going to find a lot in common with the nature of God, the character of God, and the history of the narrative of what Christians hold to. More so than the average quote unquote agnostic. Yeah. Wow. And so they’re gonna get all the way to the point where they get to Jesus and they’re gonna go one step further than the Jews and accept him as a prophet, but they’re not going to accept him as son of God.
Right. And so they understand actually part of the, role of Jesus, but they only understand 1 third of it. They don’t understand the priestly relationship of Jesus and his dying for the sin of mankind, and they don’t understand his kingly relationship with mankind as the part of the trinity. And so think about it in that sense. So now how would you share the gospel with your Muslim friend?
Are you gonna change the word from Allah to God when you talk about him? Or are you going to talk about him and the correct things that he believes about God and the nature and the character attributes of God and hopefully bring him for what he knows in part to what he knows in full? Yeah. You know, have you read Eternity in Their Hearts by Don Richardson? I have.
There’s the first chapter that that just got me off the bat, and he’s basically talking about contextualization when missions came to South Korea. Actually, it wasn’t North or South. It was just Korea. And the Catholics had, you know, tried to come and bring Christ to, the Koreas and, were failing miserably. But then the Protestants came over and then they heard about this story, this folklore called Hananim, which is basically Hanah means 1, nim, like a deity.
Right? Hananim. And so the Protestants decided, hey, we’re gonna take the stories, right, or the the folklore behind this and we’re going to use this to explain God, our God. And I’m assuming that Hananim was far less close to Yahweh than Allah is as he is. Absolutely.
Because they they asked, hey, you know, what do you know about Hananim? Because they wanted to know about the folklore. The folklore was basically, it’s been a while since I read this book, but it was basically, you know, if you do something wrong, like Hananim is watching kinda thing. Not a boogeyman, so but, like Nice. Like, you know elf on a shelf.
I I’m sorry. Like, I don’t know. All my Korean friends out there. Like like like, you know, somebody that is a higher power that’s, you know, like aware of what you’re doing and, you know, so the Protestants said, hey, you know, let me explain, you know, who Hananim is. And they start to go through, you know, and teach, you know, the Christian God through the name Hananim.
And Korea, I think, right now is like 20 some, 25% Christian. You know, Christianity start started to spread like wildfire, and then the, you know, I think the Catholics, took on the name Hananim too. And today, to this day, we call God Hananim. A lot of that comes down to bible translation, Howard, and that’s happening right now in South Asia because some of the earliest translations that were done by guys like William Carey, Henry Martin used the Hindu terms for deity as opposed to the Muslim terms for deity. And, of course, Muslims were not interested because they saw it as a conversion from, you know, the one god of Islam to the multiple gods of Hinduism and Christianity.
Yeah. But, you know That’s why I’m saying the word matters and also the meaning behind the word matters. Right. But I think, for all of those listeners that are probably flinching right now, I think it probably has to do more with the people that have abused it in the past and it’s not taking it too far. Absolutely.
I’ve heard that, hey, we’re all working towards the same God. Right. You know, there’s one God at the middle and we just have different spokes to get to him and Right. Right. Like a Universalism all the time.
Like a more complicated or, you know, better sounding version of Universalism, you know, the Right. The spokes of the wheel. Or I I’ve I’ve heard stories where in, India, where Jesus would have, like, 8 arms Mhmm. And be blue. It’s really interesting, like, just to hear.
And then, of course, with with Islam, the insider movements. Right? Right. We’re gonna do an episode on that, on insider movements. There’s a lot of lot of discussion going on about that.
We’re we’re running out of time, but let me get to the character attributes of God and Islam because there are some some glaring similarities and then there are some glaring differences. Okay. Some of the similarities, you do have the 99 names of God in Islam and I encourage Christians to pick up a book written by David Bentley who has written a book called 99 Names of God. And I think he I can’t remember the subtitle, but we’ll put it in the show notes. But he goes through and actually outlines how these 99 names of God are fulfilled in Christ Mhmm.
As a witness tool. So during Ramadan, this next month, when you see Muslims going around and they’re spinning their, prayer beads, there’ll be 33 beads on a you know, almost looks like a rosary and they’ll spin it 3 times and they’ll recite one name each time they spin it. The names are, you know, Ar Rahman, which would be the merciful, the Arraheem, the compassionate, the holy one. I’ll just go through these in English so we don’t confuse people, but the holy one, the peace, the omnipotent one or all powerful one, the creator of all things, the one who forgives and pardons, the all powerful, the avenger. No.
I had one student tell me. Yeah. But that that’s not right because god is not an avenger. I’m like, you gotta read 2nd Thessalonians, brother. Yeah.
I was gonna say, that’s not what the Bible says. Yeah. Vengeance is mine. The omniscient one, the one who settles all disputes, the meek, the lowly, the one who forgives sins, the one who expresses appreciation, the generous one. So it goes on and on.
I don’t wanna go through all 99 names but there’s 99 names of God. And I think that, most of these names, if not all of them, I would probably make the case that all of them are in line with the character attributes of God in the bible. And so, now there are obviously glaring differences. 1 in particular would be the love of God and in Islam God loves those who do the will of Allah. And I think that’s a significant difference between the God of the Bible and the God of Islam.
Explain that again. Allah loves the people that do the will. That do the will of Allah. Okay. And so it’s it’s a conditional love.
Oh, but that that doesn’t sound so conditional to me. I think there’s, there’s Christian texts that talk about, I was gonna say in James James 1. Like, the truce religion take, Oh, yeah. Take care of your faith. The widows and, you know yeah.
Yeah. Faith without works. Isaiah chapter, last chapter of Isaiah, what is it? 16 when it talks about the true fast. But back to the beginning of the question which was from our our listener there, the God of Molech.
It’s really interesting that that’s become a popular saying among Christians, the God of Molech being the God of Allah. I I really don’t see where they’re getting this because in some sense, the God in the Quran and the God of Islam, Allah, not only is not interested, in blood sacrifice, the God of the Bible certainly is. The God of Islam actually would make the case that the the blood sacrifice doesn’t even reach God. This is in the Quran. I’m trying to remember the passage here.
I think it’s in in Surah 2235. It says, the sacrifice of camels we have made for you among them as symbols from Allah. And then towards the end of this passage, it says, it is not their meat nor their blood that reaches Allah. It is your piety that reaches him. And so that’s right there in line with Isaiah as well that it’s not the sacrifice.
It’s the piety of the heart. And so there’s so much there that we can build on and help them to understand that Jesus ultimately is going to answer the question of that first singer, which is, what should I do with my shame? What should I do? They know their sins. They may not tell them to you, but they know that they’re going to approach the day of judgment alone, and they’re gonna be weighed and found wanting.
Right. So but don’t get stuck on the name. If a person is willing to, join you on 60% of what you believe or 70% on what you believe. I don’t think you need to obliterate that 70% and start from square 1. Yeah.
I, you know, I just I I guess for me, I’m just thinking honestly, that it’s just so hard, I think, to start from something that you know is a totally different religion. Like, it’s all your life, it’s been a different religion. And then to say, oh, yeah. They have 70%. Let’s move them forward.
Let’s get them to Christ. Not lambasting or destroying everything that they have known that is true about god. It’s interesting. And I think it also has to do with, you know, like, because Allah is a I mean, Allah, but, Islam is a little bit different situation than, like, let’s say, Hinduism or some of these animistic religions. Mhmm.
So much closer. I guess the more we just look at it, you’re right. I mean, there is so much so many similarities. So close and just missing the one thing that’s Right. You can’t have Islam with the crucifixion Right.
And the resurrection, and you can’t have Christianity without it. Right. And that’s a huge huge diversion between the 2. I wish it were not so, separate and so far. But in some ways, that chasm of the death and the resurrection is far more than we could ever realize.
It’s not something that we can just say, hey. We’re pretty much the same, you and I. And I think Muslims would argue that. Muslims would say, hey, our religion is pretty much the same. You know, we both believe in God.
We both believe and they would and, by the way, the question for a Muslim is not a hard one. Was there a God of Islam and the God of Christianity the same God? Of course. Easy question. I mean, look at the prophets.
Look at the messages. They need the Torah. They need the gospel in order to make sense of the Quran. And so they would say, yeah. Of course, it’s the same god.
Would you argue that Muslims are closer to God or to Christ than Jews are? I have no idea. I mean, you know, Howard, think about it in a sense of, Paul in the New Testament. Mhmm. I don’t think anybody would have argued that he was close to Christ.
Yeah. I could Do you know it? Do you know what I mean? Right. He was a Pharisee, a Pharisees, and a desire to to to snuff out all of Christianity.
Yet God saw fit to save him through blinding him on the road to Damascus. And so I think about the Muslims in the same way that I think about all of the non Jewish world or the pagan world or the gentile world, and that is they were once far off and they’ve been brought near. They’ve been brought near because the holy spirit is working and doing things, and we have no idea. And, like, what I can say is what we know from research and from church planning movements is that it’s you keep sharing the gospel. You keep testifying about Christ.
You keep being a witness, and, suddenly, one day, it just clicks. And it’s not like this sort of strategy or any one particular thing you did. It’s just fully understanding something. Yeah. But we gotta get we have to do another episode on contextualization and looking specifically at the debates going on right now within mission agencies about insider movements.
Right. That is that’s gonna be a lot of fun. Alright. So this show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And at this point in the show is where, if you wanna partner with us, we would put your ad.
So if you wanna be a part of the show, you like partnering with us, you like what we’re doing, you wanna be on our team, what have you, bringing this show to the world, then email us and let us know. Alright. So I think in wrapping it up, it’s a complicated question. I know I say that a lot and you you might, Howard, say I’m skirting the issue, but I think that it’s way more complex than simply saying yes or no. And I know a lot of Christians, probably the vast majority are gonna say, nope.
Totally different. And I would argue that in that same way, if I wanted to simplify it, I would say that I’d have to answer nope for some people that say they know Christ and said, say, I don’t know. Because I hear the way that they talk about God and the character attributes of God, and I think, we might be talking about 2 different gods. Yikes. I’m I’m more on the line of saying, I I really don’t know.
What I’m confident in is that there is only one God and there is only one Lord Jesus Christ and that, ultimately, in order to know that one God, you must know Christ. Right. But I do think that there are some people that know some things about God apart from Christ and that ultimately my goal as a believer is to help them to come to know God fully and experience reconciliation with God through Christ. Right. And I would not make the name Allah the hill to die on.
I would not make, you know, don’t make Allah the stumbling block to someone’s faith. That would be a tragedy if they were willing to accept Christ as, God and yet were unwilling to change the name, that that would just be silly to me. The name of God, in my opinion, is not nearly as important as the meaning behind it. And if you think differently, you probably need to reconsider the name that you call God on a daily basis. Right.
And even just considering different languages of the world, don’t call everybody you know, everyone doesn’t call God God. Right? Like, Korean, That’s not God. It’s not the same word, you know. Dios.
Right. Yeah. Which would be much more close actually to Theos or Zeus or any other terminology. But I go back to the Psalm 148 and think to myself, all of these things that are being listed are things that mankind is consistently trying to give deification or godlike status to. And the psalmist right there says that all of these things are created and all of these things sing praise to him.
Right. And that’s who we’re talking about. Yes. The one true God. Well, everybody, thank you so much for listening.
Again, iTunes reviews help. I think we’re at the up to 30 right now. Oh, I think it was 31. We gotta read a couple of them on the air next week next week. And, yeah.
We we appreciate all of the the love that you guys, send us. And, if you think about it, pray for us too because, doing what we do, we wanna represent, Christ well. We wanna see Muslims come to know, Jesus Christ as lord and savior. And this is kind of part of our way of doing it. And, yeah, so any kind of prayers you throw our way would be, amazing.
And, yeah, keep listening. Check out the website that we use, zwemercenter.com, and that’s, you know, always, you can click on it on our show notes and, and check out the articles. We just released an article this week, about Ramadan, about, how Ramadan, is important for Christians, as an opportunity to pray for Muslims. Absolutely. Really encourage you guys to download or to purchase the 30 day prayer guide, through worldchristian.com.
It’s gonna give you a daily thing to pray, and this is something that goes across the whole global church to be praying for Muslims. And so take advantage of that opportunity to pray for the next 30 days for Muslims because it’s a real spiritually seeking time for a lot of folks and this is the time where God seems to do things, in and through the lives of Muslims. Right. And, something else that I just kinda popped in my head, was that, you know, like according to, like, Dave Cash and a lot of these other guys, because of what groups like ISIS and Boko Haram are doing, a lot of Muslims are questioning their faith, their religion, and more and more coming to Christ because of, I know that the atrocities are definitely unspeakable, but at the same time, people are coming to know the Lord, so, and this time would be a great time to pray, you know, that more and more Muslims would come to know the Lord. Mhmm.
Anyway, so thank you guys for listening.